Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has repeated its rhetoric that the war was aimed at fighting Nazism in neighboring lands. Russia would try to “seaize” Ukraine. Part of this narrative is Chancellor Sergei Lavrov’s speech stating that the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish does not invalidate this claim. “Hitler also had Jewish blood,” he said on Monday, a statement rejected by the Israeli and German governments.
Russia’s insistence on citing Nazism in its statements about military attacks in Ukraine is not justified, as in many other European countries, by small neo-Nazi groups in the neighboring country or by the policy led by the Ukrainian president.
Experts explain that the Russian speech was part of Vladimir Putin’s policy to glorify his Soviet past and promote the legendary image of a Russian power that will continue its deadly war against Nazism.
II of the Soviet Union. Praise for his role during World War II is so central to Putin’s propaganda strategy that it became part of the Constitution in 2020.
Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany has been widely celebrated every May 9 under Putin since the 2000s. According to analysts, the rise in Russian aggression in the Donbass in recent weeks may be Russia’s attempt to present its successes at upcoming festivities.
A victorious Russia liberating the world
Putin, who came to power in the 2000s, is faced with a nation that has lost its international importance and is trying to rebuild itself after many crises.
In an effort to put Russia back on the international board and unite the population, Putin decides to perpetuate the legend of the Soviet Victory, built during the USSR under Léonid Brezhnev’s command between 1964 and 1982.
In the Soviet propaganda of the period, while European countries, for better or worse, were accustomed to living under Hitler’s yoke, the Soviet Union was largely responsible for liberating the world from the clutches of the German Nazis. In this version, the number of Soviet soldiers killed is 7 million, a much smaller human loss than the actual mourning caused by the 26 million deaths.
Also, as researcher Nicolas Werth noted, in an interview Le Monde, the soldiers become the main protagonists of the story, leaving the image of Stalin in the background. With this, the honorary professor explains that Brezhnev formed “the unity of the people, the party and the army.”
This is the image Russia has saved as an anti-Nazi force that is the basis of Putin’s 1945 victory legitimacy and Russian identity.
Over the years, Putin has strengthened the rhetoric that Russians are the heroes of the struggle against Nazism, and strengthened it with grandiose nationalist celebrations of histories associated with the Second World War. For this, the president is using the weapons of Soviet historical manipulation, even changing the Constitution, to include any ban that would minimize Russian heroism in 2020.
Censorship of historians, professors and journalists allows the Russian version to spread. Last year, the International Federation for Human Rights published an 80-page report listing the Russian government’s systematic attacks on the country’s memory and those trying to study or defend different versions of history.
Ilya Nuzov, head of FIDH for Eastern Europe, said at the time, “The Soviet Union’s World War II. RFI.
Russian Media Links Today’s Ukraine to Nazism
In this crucible, Ukraine’s identification with the Nazi enemy of the 1940s is used to increase the Russian people’s support for the war.
Based on the statement, Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandeira’s collaboration with Nazi Germany in the hope that Hitler’s regime would later support Ukraine’s independence from the USSR, historian Korine Amacher asks, “Where is the Russian obsession? Nazi Ukraine”.
The Ukrainian government’s attempt to recognize Bandera as the nation’s hero in 2010 – a decision that was later overturned in court – is enough to mark Ukraine in Russian rhetoric as a country under Nazi rule.
However, the statements bear little relation to reality. The far right plays a marginal role in Ukrainian politics. And even the notorious Azov battalion’s ties to neo-Nazi groups do not seem to be enough to justify the information published by the Russian media.
Established at the same time as the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Azov battalion currently has between 3,500 and 5,000 soldiers. With the urgent conscription of thousands of soldiers since the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory, this is an insignificant number compared to the Ukrainian army, which today consists of about 350,000 soldiers.
However, in the news in the Russian media, journalists describe the Ukrainian training camps as places of immorality and violence, where soldiers use drugs, throw licentious parties and torture people, as well as carrying various Nazi symbols.
“Nazis, Satanists, torturers, mercenaries, drug addicts and alcoholics, that’s the recurring image on Russian television networks of Ukrainian fighters,” says Elena Volochine, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. France24 in Moscow.
“Russian propaganda paints a picture in black and white and suggests that all the fighters of the Ukrainian forces are Nazis, as they would have been during the Second World War,” the French journalist concludes.
This Russian propaganda may be at the root of violent acts by soldiers in Ukraine, such as killing civilians and executing people imprisoned in Bucha.
“Propaganda definitely has an effect on soldiers who go to war. [o presidente russo Vladimir Putin] Saying that Ukraine is “destroyed” and that the country is “infested with Nazis”, these soldiers may think people are trying to escape. [das cidades ocupadas da Ucrânia] The Nazis and they decide to shoot them”, says General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French military mission at the UN.
with incoming information Camille marigold, sophie malibeaux and Gregory genevriergives RFI
source: Noticias
